hush, baby
by whizz
Summary: She's whole. He's human. But reality's catching up.. RikuReplica/Naminé


**game; **Kingdom Hearts (II)  
**pairing; **RikuReplica/Naminé  
**warnings; **some violence, maybe some curses, I'm not really sure.  
**disclaimer; **I own nothingggggg

&**&**&

She draws passages between sugar-coated dreams and harsh realities, connecting feelings and people and _memories-_

(_"Kairi?"  
_  
She's chaining them together,

_"No, I'm Naminé."  
_  
she's tearing them apart.)

He watches her, eyes burning with a jaded fire, spidery fingers searching her bony shoulder, searching reassurance. Naminé meets his gaze, she's all smiles and sweetness and innocence, hiding broken limbs and ripped flesh behind her pale cerulean eyes, behind her purity.

He's perfect; a perfect reflection of everything he could be, of everything he's **supposed **to be - that's what makes him perfect. His imperfection. His dirty, ugly soul. His dirty, ugly, _non-existent _soul.

"Naminé?" he asks, voice almost tentative.

"Yes?" she answers, not even bothering to look up from her sketchbook.

"We're the same, aren't we?"

She pauses briefly, gazes locking, breath hitching momentarily. Her eyes are hollow; you can see into the depths of them, and there is nothing there. Not even a trace of the humanity she once claimed to have. When she does not answer, he rephrases the question, something stoic in his movements, something tensing around his mouth.

"We're both.. trapped in here. We're both sad in here, aren't we?" he hisses, silver bangs falling over his downcast eyes. She smiles. And something malicious flashes in her dead eyes.

"Yes, we are", she says, voice sickening sweet, "But we are not the same. Not in the slightest."

Surprise crosses his features, brows deeply furrowed. She knows that there's no real emotion behind it and so she figures that she's in no hurry to explain.

"But.. what do you mean?"

"What is your name?" Naminé asks, long piano-fingers lingering by the crayons; blue and green and yellow and _red._

("_What's your favourite color, princess?"  
_  
He was flames and fire and something bittersweet in the back of her mouth.

_"I don't have one."_

_"That's silly, princess. Everyone has a favourite color. Wanna know what mine is?"_

Tick tock tick tock pleasepleaseplease don't hit me again, please don't hurt me anymore-

_"It's red."_

And her scream echoed throughout the otherwise silent night.)

"It's Riku. You know that."

Her smile is a pleased one, and her tone resembles the one you use when speaking to small children or to people who do not **understand. **

"No, it's not. You just think it is", she explains, finally standing and turning swiftly to catch his gaze at eye-level.

Her sketchbook lay forgotten on the small table, open and bleeding colors. Colors that melts together and creates something _solid; _something like the taste of salt sea water when you get pushed beneath the surface, something like warm sand slipping through your fingers, something like three best friend's laughter ringing as they run across the beach, ice creams and childish promises and a hero hiding beneath a skinny boy, threatening to break a picture perfect friendship apart.

(_"Sora, Don't ever change."_

She's pretty, far too pretty with her maroon hair and her tanned skin and her sincere smiles and-

and she's not just anybody, no, she's special, she's _somebody_. A somebody.

_"I'm not afraid of the darkness!" _

And an unbreakable promise is ripped to shreds, leaving only a giant void behind.)

"You don't have a name", she continues idly, as she runs a finger down the side of his face, not once breaking eye contact. He's staring at her in confusion, and had it not been for the knowledge that she actually helped _building _him with her own bloody hands she'd almost fallen for it.

"You're not human. You're not real. You're just a creation", she laughs bitterly, like the words were familiar to her. "Just a copy", she finishes, voice almost a whisper - a broken whisper.

"You're.. you're lying!" he accuses, finger shaking as he points it at her, eyes big and round and disbelieving. She shakes her head sadly, turning away from him once again to sit back down and continue with her drawing.

"I'm not", she says, and then her entire attention is focused on the paper in front of her.

She hears his almost savage scream threatening to break the walls around them - she just pretends she doesn't.

&**&**&

"I love you", he whispers, voice tender and eyes swimming with emotion - with "emotion."

She doesn't answer, she just looks at him in that way that tells him it's better to keep quiet, especially when those words don't mean a thing. He can clearly read it in her face, but he doesn't care, just crushes her delicate body harder against him, burying his nose in her golden locks.

"I love you", he repeats, and as ice cold lips ghost over the much too pale skin of her slender neck and collarbone, he murmurs the words like some broken record; over and over and over again, and then she loses count as his even colder hands find her heated flesh, something close to desire written in his eyes. It's fake and he's only fooling himself, and they both know it.

"How can you love if you don't have a _heart_?" she asks, and the moment is over just like that.

Pulling away from his grasp, the clatter of her shoes against the marble floor is the only thing audible.

He watches her leave and something stings within his ribcage, but he knows that pain is only an illusion of the feelings he foolishly believes to have.

&**&**&

It used to be a game. How many hits can she take before she falls apart, how many times can they bend her before she breaks, how much torture can she withstand until she's finally torn to shreds?

(_"If I put my hands here, and put some pressure there, do you think you can hold your breath long enough to live?"_

It's all a blur of cruel smirks and hard eyes and mad laughter.)

Her cheek is reddening seconds after her face hits the wall with a rather disturbing thump, Marluxia's hand still positioned in the air so that he can repeat the motion if necessary.

She doesn't dare look at him, she just closes her eyes and pushes herself further into the wall, body all hunched up praying for the world to just go _away. _

"The tears running down your face is fake", comes his taunting voice as he kneels in front of her, gingerly placing a long finger under her chin so that he can force her to meet his gaze; it's a mocking imitation of gentleness, and her stomach feels heavy at the mere thought.

"So is the blood covering your body", Marluxia continues with a sneer, digging his nails into her cheek, hard enough to draw blood.

Naminé winces, struggling to lift her hands and fight him, but the strength has left her completely and she can only give a weak whimper as his other hand grips a fair amount of her sunshine-blonde hair, currently stained with scarlet fluid, rather violently.

"You're fake", he says firmly, "But you are quite useful. How's it going?"

"It's going well", she chokes out, trying to keep her voice even without much success.

"Sora's memories, they're almost completely gone, aren't they?"

She nods, afraid that her voice might fail her. If she closes her eyes, it's almost like fireworks exploding in a million colors. Pretty, pretty colors. Pretty like princesses - Axel had called her a princess, once upon a time. But he probably didn't mean it - princesses were beautiful and happy and always singing, after all.

And Naminé was most definitely _not. _

As her head is slammed into the wall once again with more force than necessary, she is sure that she's seeing stars blinking at her behind tightly closed eyelids. If she didn't know any better, she'd call it pain. But pain was only a name to her - just like love, hatred, jealousy, happiness, sorrow and grief was.

&**&**&

She's sitting with her back towards him, drawing - always drawing - pen dancing across the paper, crayons bringing life to dull paintings, her eyes far away and her lips split.

A rather ugly-looking bruise can be seen on her left cheek, looking so out of place in contrast to the rest of her pale and flawless skin. The Replica's sure that she has more of those bruises, though, hidden beneath layer after layer of white clothing.

He's not standing very far from her, observing her work from behind her shoulder where a waterfall of blonde hair is thrown. She doesn't even seem to notice him, completely lost in that current drawing of hers.

"Who's that?" he asks, obviously talking about the boy she's drawing - blue eyes, sandy-blonde hair sticking out in gravity-defying spikes, a black coat covering his lithe body. She pauses, eyes narrowing dangerously for half a second, but then she's back to normal again.

"It's Roxas", she says after a while, gaze focused on the eyes of her masterpiece. It's the wrong shade of blue, she notices briefly.

"And who's Roxas?" the Replica asks, his monotone voice betraying nothing.

Silence. For a very, very long time.

(_"I'll.. disappear?" _

Body fading, senses washing away, the only proof you ever existed vanishing and leaving room for the original.

_"No, you won't disappear! You'll be whole!"_

But what does it matter when you're so **used **to being broken?)

"It's nobody", she answers at last, something that could've been regret flashing in her azure eyes. "He's just.. nobody."

She rips the page out and to a million pieces. The Replica will never know how true those words are.

&**&**&

(_"Hey, Naminé." _

Pretty sun and pretty earth and pretty sky and pretty world.

_"Yeah?" _

She is painfully real, and the feeling grows stronger with every inhale.

_"Are we going to die now?"_

A knowing smirk, something almost-familiar glimmering in the depths of her round eyes.

_"Of course not, Roxas. This is where our life begins."_)

**A/N; **it's weird, yes. but i like it. kinda.


End file.
